“Dylan Dog” is at best, a rental

I really hate it when there are absolutely no extras on a DVD or BD. Hey, the name of this column is “DVD Extra,” after all. And when the movie gets as bad a review on Rotten Tomatoes (3%) as “Dylan Dog: Dead of Night” did, you think that least someone would try to explain why in a commentary track.

Brandon Routh, who did not impress me with his wooden portrayal of The Man of Steel in Bryan Singer’s reboot of “Superman Returns,” appears here as the title character. He is a detective in present-day New Orleans. The difference is; his clients are all either werewolves, vampires or zombies. It would seem that the undead or supernatural creatures find New Orleans an ideal place to live; who could possibly pick them out of all the other characters that inhabit that fair city?

As the film opens, Dylan’s narration indicates that he is tired of being the private investigator to the dead, and is looking for straight clients. His wannabe assistant, Marcus Adams (Sam Huntington), wants to be his full partner, but Dylan rebuffs him. They get a call from a potential client, Elizabeth Ryan (Anita Briem), from a rich section of town. It seems her father was murdered by a werewolf. Dylan refuses the case and drives off.

However, after Marcus is attacked and killed by some supernatural creature, Dylan digs out his paranormal briefcase and his silver-tipped and wooden-tipped bullets and goes hunting for those who did it by taking Elizabeth’s case. First of all, he makes a trip to the morgue, where he picks up the now zombiefied Marcus.

As I noted above, there are no extras here. None. Nada. Zip. That’s already one strike against buying this disc, either on BD or DVD.

So the next question is: is this movie really 97% bad, as indicated on Rotten Tomatoes. After watching it, I didn’t think it was that terrible. I always thought that Routh was selected for the role of Superman not only because of his resemblance to the late Christopher Reeve, but also because he would look good as an action figure. In this film, he does have the chance to be a bit more animated and loquacious. His narration and one-liners are amusing enough.

Admittedly, I’ve seen worse in recent weeks, so this was actually surprisingly watchable. But this is not a film that you would watch more than once; it’s not that good.

Bottom line: if you’re looking for a horror-comedy to watch, this one is accessible. But watch the trailer first. However, due to its lack of extras, which indicates to me that Fox realized how much of a dud this one was and didn’t want to spend any extra money on it (but is hoping that you will), I have to recommend that you only rent this one.